Exactly half an hour before breakfast time, Ruby decides to visit papa’s office. There is one more man papa wants to show her for her consideration.


“Uff, papa, please show mercy, let me decide for myself,” she begged.

Her distant relative, Auntie Sheela, shouted mockingly at her, “Spinster, spinster, spinster.”

“See what the relatives speak about you?” Her mother murmured through eloquent peony lips.

“Let them speak! Let them speak, mummy!” Ruby fumed. She hated to show herself off to men here and there, but might she ever ignore papa’s callous command? Mummy, under the strict guidance of the ever-strict papa always helped Ruby in decking her up before showing her off to would-be grooms.

“Might I come with Ruby, today?” mummy asked at the time of papa’s departure to his office.

“No, no, boys dislike girls who come with their mothers.”

So she busied herself with her daughter in the dressing room, helping her as if in the service of Alexander Pope’s beautiful Belinda in The Rape Of The Lock. Mummy suggested her donning a light blue sari. She considered Ruby’s lips too thin, so gets out some imported lipstick.

“Let me put on your lips, daughter. Today, boys don’t like thin lips.”

Ruby restrained her impatience. How parents of girls show off their unmarried daughters to everybody. Boys don’t like this, boys don’t like that. Uff!

“Talcum powder?”

“Here, it is.” Mummy applied some smoothly to her cheeks.

“Hair?”

“Ponytail,” mummy advised her. “He dislikes fashionable girls.” And she braided her daughter’s silky hair into an attractive ponytail.

After elegantly decking up, Ruby took a frugal breakfast and set out for her show-off tour. Alone. Earlier, several times, she had visited papa’s office for this matrimonial purpose. Had her papa sought her mother’s opinion on her marriage? No. Mummy wanted Ruby to tell them her choice but papa refused to listen to anything from his daughter.

“No, no, it’s my duty to pick a suitable boy for her.”

But why did papa punish her in this way? Why did mummy submit to his every command? He even disliked listening to mummy’s views on anything. Mummy did not resist. She behaved as if she were his bonded slave mistress.

In view of papa’s arbitrary ways, Ruby rejected all the men papa showed her in his office. No doubt, many of them liked her because of her five-figure salary.

“Your papa says that this one is the smartest of all the men you have rejected,” mummy remarked with a wan smile on her face.

Ruby pulled a face behind her mother’s back.

“Ruby, please, you must say yes. You won’t get a better offer than this one.”

“Mummy dear, does he have a beautiful mind?”

“He is rich, daughter,” mummy said proudly.

“Rich?” Ruby scoffed.

“He is the pampered boy of your papa’s company's boss. He comes from a very good family.”

“And Pardeep is his name,” mummy continued after a moment.

“Yesterday, your papa was so happy when his boss asked for you. He would love to have you in his home.” Mummy began to wax enthusiastic.

Ruby impatiently listened to her mother’s lecture.

After leaving home, she got Shastri Chowk to hail her an auto rickshaw. Papa had told her to arrive at his office at ten, and it was already a quarter past. Until now, she had never arrived at papa’s office late, although she had rejected all the suitors that papa had selected.

“Come, come, madam, where do you want to go?” Three auto rickshaw men ran towards her. Ruby stared at all the drivers. One of them was her acquaintance, so she accepted him. Ruby got in quickly and requested, “Subash Marg.”

The chauffeur turned his vehicle and raced into the sultry road.

Ruby was concerned that papa might admonish her for being late. She began to feel rather apprehensive. Unaware of his fare’s feelings, the chauffeur began to whistle a song from an old film.

“How much longer?” Ruby asked as casually as she could.

“Some forty minutes, madam.” And then resumed whistling with even greater vigour.

Ruby disliked his noise. She became cross with him. “Stop, stop this nonsense! It’s enough!” she cried angrily.

The chauffeur, slowed the vehicle. Her harsh demeanour startled him. “Madam, it is a popular song, Rafi Sahib sang it in the 1970 movie, Kati Patang. You don’t like old songs, madam?”

“No, no, no,” Ruby cried.

The chauffeur accelerated the vehicle.

After some time, Ruby realised that she had cruelly insulted him. Apologetically, breaking the silence, she said, “Do you like singing Rafi Sahib’s songs?”

He did not answer immediately. Ruby had a feeling he might be crying.

“Madam, you are a regular customer of my auto rickshaw. My fortune! By God! I adore my every fare. If you don’t like Rafi Sahib’s song. I shall not sing.”

“It was not my intention to hurt your feelings, dear gentleman,” Ruby murmured.

Dear gentleman! The chauffeur felt proud to be so addressed.

Ruby asked him his good name.

“Good name?” he questioned. Does a poor man have a good name? “Gopal, madam,” he conceded.

Ruby asked how much he earned a day.

“Sometimes two hundred, sometimes nothing, but I am happy, madam.” He laughed with embarrassment. “The best quality in me, madam, is that I neither lie nor cheat on my clients. I think that my clients are God’s angels,” he added proudly.

“Gopal, you have a beautiful mind,” she praised him.

“I thank you, madam.” He gave her a look of respect and love. “Who is your husband, madam?” he asked. “He is not with you. Has he gone abroad to further his career?”

Ruby was immediately angry. How dare he ask her a personal question like that? She didn’t know how to answer him.

“I’m single,” she answered stiffly.

“Really? You’re not married?”

“No. And why does my being single make you happy?” Ruby was furious now.

“Then perhaps you would like to marry me?” the chauffeur suggested mockingly, “for I am also unmarried.”

The auto rickshaw pulled up with a measured jerk. “This is your destination, madam.”

Ruby gave him twenty rupees, overpaying him deliberately. After all, she had embarrassed him just then.

He took it and beamed. “Madam, you’re rich, how could I possibly dream of marriage with you?”

Ruby ignored him. She didn’t need this sort of nonsense in her life.
o o o
It was a typical second floor office. A spacious area, an exclusive place where papa asked Ruby to sit. It was her father’s retiring room. No one except for guests or suitors were allowed to enter that room.

And Ruby was late. Would her father be cross with her? She decided that she would immediately reject the man that papa had selected for her, particularly as he was supposed to be the smartest of them all - according to her father.

Then what about that chauffeur? Was he not a gentleman? Agreed, he was poor. How could he possibly have dreamt of marriage with her? It was a fatuous suggestion. Nonsense. She was amazed at herself because she was now beginning to take his offer seriously, He had a beautiful mind, and she liked that. Why was he not already married? Perhaps the girl of his choice had refused to give him her heart.

Papa was not in the office.

“Then where is Mr. Rastogi?”

“Madam, he has gone to the bank on company business,” the office boy replied politely, offering her a chair. He was aware that Ruby was his boss’s haughty daughter. “He asked you to telephone him as soon as you arrived.”

Ruby did as she was told. Her father asked her to sit in his retiring room.

Taking all newspapers from the office table with her, she tiptoed into the adjoining room. She read for a while, then she must have fallen asleep, for she awoke with a jerk, wondering where her father was.

She rushed out of the room with the newspapers in her hand, and asked the dozing office boy, “Is papa not come yet?”

“No, madam.” The office boy dozed. This was a typical company building, this pharmaceutical company’s office, with the usual idiosyncrasies. Despite the instructions given him by Ruby’s father, he was not enthusiastic about offering her tea.

Ruby wondered if she should leave the office immediately. She had arrived late, but shouldn’t papa have waited for her? She hated to sit in an office with servants. Did papa take her for a silly girl waiting for him in the office? Did he not sense that her make-up would turn messy in the heat?

Pardeep was the younger son of papa’s boss. And he was supposed to be the smartest man of them all, according to her mother, who was constantly singing his praises. Ruby had visited papa’s office several times, but had never caught a glimpse of this Pardeep.

Then her father returned, full of apologies for keeping her waiting. He picked up his phone and said, “Pardeep, come quickly. She is here.”

Within ten minutes, a smart man, who Ruby judged to be about twenty-five, appeared in papa’s office.

Ruby studied him. He was certainly smartly dressed, in starched shirt with necktie, striped trousers and shining black leather pumps. His hair was parted on one side and dressed.

He stepped into the room wearing a genial shyness on his face.

“Namaste.” He obsequiously folded his hands when papa introduced Ruby to him. In response, she too folded her hands.

They exchanged polite small talk for a while and Ruby told him how that now she worked in a pharmaceutical company, which paid her well. Pardeep was happy because he liked a working woman and thought she might help him in his business if she agreed to his proposal of marriage.

Ruby’s father also dreamt of promotion if his daughter married his boss’s son.

They were served tea by the now wide-awake office boy.

After a while, her father deliberately left the room to give them an opportunity to be alone.

“Do you enjoy the cinema?” Pardeep took her hands in his.

Ruby modestly cast her eyes down.

“I do not find time for it because of my busy job.”

He reached forward to fondle her.

Ruby resisted him. She didn’t like that sort of thing, considering it perverted.

“Are we not going to get married soon?” he asked abruptly. “Are you not happy with our marriage?”

“It is too early for me to decide, Pardeep. Let me have some time to think it over,” she returned politely.

“Your papa said that I would be the luckiest person in the world if you happened to choose me,” Pardeep smiled. “Your fingers are artistically beautiful.” He held her hand in his elegantly maintained palm.

Ruby smiled to herself. Was this Pardeep really the son of her father’s boss, she wondered as her father returned to his office.

Pardeep departed, and papa asked Ruby to come along with him, as he had some banking to do.

Ruby asked him to drop her back home.
o o o
At the dinner table that night, when all family members were present, her father said, “I think Pardeep might be a suitable match for you, my daughter.”

“He plays with millions and loves you madly,” her mother enthused.

“Ultimately, he is my boss, daughter,” her father explained. “I would get promotion in view of this relationship.”

“Papa, please give me two days to decide.”

True to her word, two days later, papa came to the breakfast table, his face full of smiles. “Would you like me to fix the date of your marriage?”

She nodded. “But not to Pardeep. I have decided who I am going to marry.”

“Is he rich?” her mother wanted to know. “As rich as Pardeep?”

Ruby shook her head. “No, he is not rich, but he has a beautiful mind.”

“Beautiful mind?” Papa was taken aback. “Who is this then who has a beautiful mind?” He said the words sneeringly. He saw his promotion going out of the window.

“He is a chauffeur,” Ruby declared proudly. “He has already asked me, and I have already agreed to his proposal. It was he who drove me to your office that day when I met Pardeep.”

There was shocked silence around the table.